Sword and Sorceress 30

by Waters, Elisabeth

  “Spices, incense, pearls and other gems from the land of Hind come through his hands on their way east,” he said. “He is not doing badly.” The rest of meal passed in light conversation, and she left them to their night’s rest.

  She returned to her rooms, passing several guards at the gates of the Kadje compound, and then those around Sonam’s residence. Evidently with nightfall approaching there was increased concern about the demon’s possible reappearance. In her room she tossed the cats a hare Togrul had brought down with a well-aimed bowshot and ate her own meal.

  The scrolls from Wang Liu were still waiting for reply, and that was not something she could palm off on her newly-appointed lieutenants. She was able to combine the two requests for information into one reply, sealing it and setting it aside for the time being. The cats had finished their meal and were settling into their basket for the night, the bones of the hare in a neat pile nearby, picked clean and gleaming like ivory in the candlelight. She was carrying them out to the baskets in the rear that took refuse out to the farmers’ fields when it struck her.

  She tossed the bones in the basket, muttering a phrase she had not learned at her mother’s knee, and went outside, called over a pair of urchins who looked like they could run and sent them off on separate errands, giving each a copper coin and a promise of one more when they returned. A glance at the night sky showed sunset was just a short time off. She took the time for a stroll around the area. Scouting was best done in daylight.

  Back in her room she changed into a dark blue silk jacket and trousers, and black felt boots, all of which had the advantage of blending into the night’s darkness, and saw to her blades, testing the edges on her fingernail. She need not have bothered; she always kept her weapons sharp and well-cleaned, but it helped to calm her nerves. The two urchins returned, having carried out their errands, and she gave them the coppers as promised.

  Togrul and Hua Chen were the first to arrive. She informed them of what she had learned, and of her plans. Shadow and Twilight stretched and yawned, exposing needle sharp teeth. They seemed in good spirits. She hoped that boded well.

  Night fell suddenly. She thrust her sword and dagger into her sash and went out. Inquiries of the servants established that Sonam had gone out with several of his men. Satisfied that they would not be discovered, Lin Mei led her little band, human and feline, across the courtyard and into Sonam’s library. A quick search showed that there was nothing of interest among the scrolls on the shelves. But she had not expected to find anything there.

  “Men think they are so clever,” she muttered, looking about. Her eyes fixed on the dais. “Of course...” she said. Lifting one end she peered under and found a scroll wrapped in silk. A few moments reading it convinced her it was what she was looking for. She folded it and put it inside her jacket.

  “Now we go out,” she said.

  Guards milled about in the streets, but their eyes were on the rooftops and Lin Mei and her party were mostly ignored. They took a roundabout route to avoid the main street, and soon they were at their destination, an alley behind a residential compound.

  Stooping, she lifted both cats and tossed them onto the tile-topped wall, then stopped for a moment to meld their senses with hers. Hua Chen and Togrul watched quietly, knowing, or suspecting, her bond with the cats.

  The garden she saw though their night-sight was empty. She nodded to Togrul and he cupped his hands to help her up and over. She jumped down to the ground as her two men followed. A silent command sent her little scouts scampering around a trellis heavy with grapes. They saw nothing beyond and she beckoned to her men.

  Kamartike looked up, somehow not surprised to see her and her companions. “You could have come in the front door,” he said. She smiled and took out the scroll in her jacket, handing it to him.

  He read it quickly then looked up at her. “I can guess where you found this,” he said.

  She nodded. He stood and tucked his swords in his sash, leading them outside.

  The street was filled with armed men, eyes on the roofs. She looked around to be sure that Goba Jigme had arrived in response to her message. Sonam Champa was there also with Wang Due Gyaltsen. She was not surprised.

  Wang Due looked at her, then at Kamartike standing behind her.

  “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “It is dangerous. Get back inside!” She ignored him, looking at the beads he was fingering.

  “Those are bone,” she said, “not ivory.”

  “What of it?” Wang Due asked. She looked at Sonam.

  “You do well from the trade with Hind,” she said, “and that would involve caravans traveling through, or around, Tifun. Either would require friendly relations with the Yarlung Khans. It is Kamartike who benefits from trade with the Tang Empire, and wants better relations with it.” She looked at Wang Due. “You are the Njalyorpas! Those beads are not ivory but human bone, each one from a different body! I have been in the mountains, I know of your kind!” She turned to Sonam.

  “It was when I realized that the beads are not ivory, but human bone that I saw I had been lied to. You pretended to assist me to mislead me, just as you made a false alliance with Aisamo, pretending to hold the same views. It was so that you could place Wang Due, a Bon assassin, in his household.” She looked at Kamartike.

  “Last night, was it Sonam who asked Aisamo to retrieve the scroll in question?” she asked. He nodded.

  “I thought so,” she replied. She turned to Sonam.

  “Kamartike Akappi and you were the only ones who entered the room where Aisamo was killed,” Lin Mei went on. “The other three members of the council stayed just outside the door. It was you, Sonam, who sent him to his death when you asked him to retrieve that scroll. Wang Due was waiting outside in the garden with the phurbu. What you did not anticipate was that the act of killing would release the demon within. And Wang Due Gyaltsen would need another blood sacrifice to imprison the demon once more.” She stopped to look at Sonam.

  “But you were the only one to approach the body; Kamartike would not for fear of defilement. But you, Sonam Champa, are not a follower of the path of the Enlightened One. Like Wang Due, you follow the old ways of Bon.”

  “This is all nonsense!” Sonam cried out. “You have no proof for any of this!”

  “But we do,” she said, looking at Kamartike, who held up a scroll. “I wondered why the scroll was missing. There was a bare space on the table where Aisamo’s blood did not fall. The scroll covered that spot. When you approached the body you used that opportunity to take it and hide it on your person.” She looked at Kamartike.

  “Would you please tell us what it says?” she asked.

  He held the scroll aloft. “It is a letter to the August Throne requesting help to repel an invasion by Tifun. It is undated.”

  Lin Mei looked back at Sonam. “Was it to be sent to your brother in Taiyung, to be forwarded on to the Tang Court if Tifun did invade? But if you were in favor of friendship with the Tang, why take it? The answer is that you were not. I discovered it in your library, hidden under your dais. These spots are the blood of Aisamo Akkenne!”

  In hindsight later it would seem appropriate that the demon would have chosen that moment to reappear. It called in a piercing screech from the rooftop nearby, moving faster than a man along the ridge. Wang Due danced forward, brandishing the phurbu, as if taunting the demon above. The demon came closer along the rooftops.

  Lin Mei drew her sword and slashed, using the flat of the blade to strike Wang Due’s forearm and send the phurbu flying to the ground, where it stuck point first in the sand.

  Sonam chose that moment to draw his sword and rush at Lin Mei, a snarl on his face. Hua Chen’s lance and an arrow from Togrul’s bow both pierced him in the same moment to drop him to the ground. In an instant she rushed in, grasped the phurbu, dipped it in his blood, then tossed it on the sand.

  The demon came down from the rooftops, landing on the ground and scattering all present. All
except Goba Jigme, who pulled out his own phurbu and danced forward, stamping the ground with each step.

  “I stamp out the demons of ignorance!” he cried out. “I stamp out the demons of fear, of blindness and stupidity!” At each step, as the demon tried to avoid the phurbu in the ground, Goba Jigme stabbed the air with his own phurbu, always blocking the demon’s path, and moving in a circle enclosing it and the phurbu on the sand. Slowly the circle grew smaller as he danced and chanted.

  And then it was done. With what seemed a puff of smoke falling down toward the phurbu, the demon vanished, leaving quiet and stillness behind.

  “It is finished,” Goba Jigme said.

  “It is finished,” Lin Mei agreed.

  ~o0o~

  They all returned to Sonam Champa’s compound. His younger brother would take over for him when he returned from Khotan. The cats were sound asleep in their basket. Goba Jigme was sitting cross-legged on the floor enjoying a cup of tea while Hua Chen and Togrul Magh enjoyed something a bit stronger. She and they had been together for years, ever since the fight at the abandoned temple where she had found the two cats. They were steady companions, and she valued them even more now that Biao was away.

  “It is good to have faithful comrades,” Jigme said softly when Hua Chen and Togrul Magh went outside for a few minutes.

  “It is,” Lin Mei agreed, setting her cup down.

  “You walk the path,” Jigme went on.

  She shook her head. “The only paths I follow are those of the caravans.”

  He smiled. “Not so,” he said. “Do you think it was by chance that you arrived at that abandoned temple so many years ago?” She looked at him, eyes wide. He set his empty cup down. “I will go now, but I think we will meet again.”

  Death Among the Ruins

  Jonathan Shipley

  Jenna, a Church exorcist, and Trayn, her Knight-Guardian, are also recurring characters in Sword and Sorceress. I admit that I sometimes wonder just who is guarding whom. In this story Jenna takes on the challenge of a dead and cursed city.

  This is Jonathan Shipley's sixth appearance in Sword and Sorceress and his fourth tale about Jenna. Jonathan is a Fort Worth, Texas, writer who creates in the genres of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Over the last year, he has published a half dozen more speculative fiction short stories, and was one of eight finalists for the Washington Science Fiction Association's Small Press Award with his whimsical story about Hell. He looks forward to the probability of collecting and connecting all his Jenna stories into a short novel, but that's still a few years away. Jonathan maintains a web presence at www.shipleyscifi.com where you can find a full list of his published short stories.

  Lumps of blazing pitch whizzed through the air to land on roofs, setting more of the city aflame. Carts, piles of hay, barrels, roofs—it seemed everything that could burn was burning. Gaunt-looking residents hauling heavy baskets of glowing jewelry and assorted treasures through a narrow alley stolidly ignored the fires and kept to their task. Two robed wizards hurried amongst the chaos, extinguishing the worst of the flames with hand gestures. The wizards reached a well near the same alleyway and paused. The two of them, their faces showing a strong family resemblance, stared a moment at each other, then one drew a knife and stabbed it into his companion’s heart.

  Jenna awoke, fists clenched. She heard wind whistling outside and the fire crackling, and slowly relaxed her muscles. The dream had been so vivid, but it was only a dream... or was it? The image of the burning city still hovered somewhere at the back of her head, even though she was awake. That was not very dream-like, more like the dead pushing the tales of their deaths on someone with the Sight. She turned her head and realized the bedroll beside her was empty. The waystation was small, just room enough for a couple to huddle around a central firepit, with an adjoining lean-to for the horses. Where was Trayn?

  She left her own bedroll, pulled on a cloak against the chill of the night, and went looking for her Knight-Guardian. She found him standing at the crossroads, looking off to the east though the sky was dark. “Trouble?” she asked quietly, fearing an attack of some sort. She handled the ghosts; he handled the bandits. They were young, but they made a good team of exorcist and guardian

  “Just a dream,” he shrugged. “You should go back to bed. I’m just feeling a little haunted by the past.”

  “A dream,” she nodded. “Seems to be a night for them. I was just now dreaming about a burning city.”

  He gave her a curious look. “When the wind blows down from the eastern hills, it brings all manner of visions with it. Some people call this road haunted and well they should. It leads directly to ruined Sarosar.”

  Of course. Jenna hadn’t put the location together with the history, but it made perfect sense. Sarosar, the last stronghold of the wizard-lords, had come to a violent end. That was centuries ago, but the ruins were still considered haunted or cursed or worse. As a Church exorcist, her business was putting the dead to rest. Perhaps cities had ghosts as well. “Was your dream also about Sarosar?” she asked Trayn.

  He gave a short laugh. “On this road, what else would it be? But it’s guilt, not ghosts, which plague me. This east road also leads to my family’s holdings at Harebridge. It brings to mind Lanyer... my brother. And so I dreamt of him. He seemed to be calling to me from a shadowy chamber—like a crypt.”

  Jenna’s mouth tightened. She knew only the general outline of the tale, but Lanyer had perished almost a decade ago. The loss of his brother in the ruins of Sarosar had been blamed on Trayn, and so he had been turned out of his own home. Fortunately, he had found a new life in the Knighthood—fortunately for him and for her. He was the best of Knights-Guardian and travel companions.

  But the crypt reference caught her attention. It was an image a spirit might use to communicate with the living. “Perhaps this isn’t about guilt,” she suggested. “Perhaps your brother does not rest easily and needs my attention.” She heard Trayn’s sharp intake of breath, followed by a long silence.

  “We cannot go to Sarosar,” he said finally. “Far too dangerous. I learned that once already.”

  “Last time you were only a boy. This time you have the company of a trained exorcist and an ancient dwarf-ghost who remembers the wizard-lords firsthand. That makes it less dangerous.” When he said nothing, she added, “Sleep on it—it’s not that much of a detour,” and made her way back to her bedroll.

  She felt the chill of death just before a gravelly voice said, “A lot of coming and going in the night.” The dead dwarf. He had attached himself to them. In exchange for his help in their last exorcism case, they were taking the ghost to see more of the world. Yes, a ghost that wanted to travel. In so many ways, very different from the human spirits she normally trafficked with.

  “I suggested to Trayn that we journey to Sarosar to quiet his brother’s unquiet spirit. A stupid suggestion?”

  “Very stupid,” the dwarf snorted. “That place is riddled with spells. It was never exactly safe in its heyday, but when the city was about to fall, the last defending wizards made the whole city into a trap. Maybe you’re good at what you do, but Mistress Brown Eyes won’t like dealing with dead, angry wizards.”

  Jenna mulled that over as she snuggled into her bedroll. She’d had bad experiences with dead witches, and dead wizard-lords sounded even worse. But how could she not try to give Trayn’s dead brother peace when that was her profession? She fell asleep still considering that question.

  Sarosar again—this time in ruins. A shadow appeared from a side street, then the figure to belonged to. He looked familiar—Trayn? No not quite Trayn, but a close resemblance. Lanyer, the brother? He was young with the lankiness of late adolescence. He turned and beckoned. A second figure appeared, a boy several years younger who wore a more innocent version of Trayn’s face.

  The brothers walked forward into the heart of the ruins, Trayn leading two sturdy mountain ponies behind him. Then they suddenly faded out, and the city was
burning once again. The two wizards stood at the well. They, too, were probably brothers. A messenger scurried down the street towards them, his uniform hanging loose about a frame that was only skin and bones. This guard—all the people—were slowly dying. Sarosar had never fallen by the sword; it had been starved to death

  One wizard one drew a knife and stabbed it into his brother’s heart. Then he drew the dagger across his victim’s throat, letting the blood drip down into the well. A blood ritual of the darkest sort. The wizard cut open his own finger, dipped it in his brother’s blood, then with the mingled blood, scribed four glowing runes upon the lip of the well at the four cardinal points. Something dark and shadowy roiled up from the well, unfurling a blind head like a thin banner.

  The scene shimmered, and the embattled city faded into ruin...

  Jenna lurched awake, breathing hard. Dreams or visions, these weren’t pleasant. At least there would be no more this night—it was already dawn. She pulled on her traveling leathers and plaited her dark hair back into a utilitarian braid. Then she went in search of Trayn and found him already saddling the horses. He looked drawn and haggard.

  “We should go to Sarosar,” she said without preamble. “I dreamt of it again, and I think there’s a reason.”

  “I also had another dream,” he said tightly. “It was that day, but so vivid—like being there again...”

  Jenna found herself staring more than listening. It was impossible not to compare Trayn with his boyish self. Yes, the same clear blue eyes, aristocratic nose, and mane of sandy-brown hair, but there was also a bitterness to the mouth that she’d never noticed until she’d seen him without it. But more than that, she saw now that he also shared features with the wizard-lords of her dream.

  “What?” he asked, pausing in his tale. “Have I grown a second head?”

  “I also saw you and Lanyer in my dream,” she said. “I didn’t realize how young you were.”